


right girl

by peraltiaghoe



Series: peraltiago x black & white [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Cute, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Kissing, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Get Together, Idiots in Love, Implied Sexual Content, Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago Fluff, Love, Not Canon Compliant, Partners to Lovers, Pre-Relationship, References to Canon, black & white - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:13:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24273358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peraltiaghoe/pseuds/peraltiaghoe
Summary: hiiiii jesseabrams and i are gonna collab on a collection of peraltiago one shots based on the Maine's album Black & White. We're each doing five songs, and my first song is Right Girl. ¨̮so here's a lil get together one shot set somewhere after boyle-linetti wedding and before johnny & dora. (we're just gonna pretend charges & specs never happened and jake never acknowledged or admitted his feelings for Amy)anyways, here ya go.
Relationships: Jake Peralta & Amy Santiago, Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Series: peraltiago x black & white [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733659
Comments: 10
Kudos: 74





	right girl

**Author's Note:**

> _She was the last thing that I saw last night before I hit the ground._   
>  _Oh god, I did the wrong thing to the right girl,_   
>  _My mind was only in it for a minute,_   
>  _Had a bad fling with the good girl,_   
>  _I was stupid and dumb, not giving a—_   
>  _The blank stare out the window,_   
>  _If I could just sober up I could just admit,_   
>  _I did the wrong thing to the right girl,_   
>  _It was your world baby and I just lived in it._

“C’mon, Peralta,” Amy laughed, and his eyes immediately narrowed. “When was the last time you were even on a date?” 

He scoffed. “Oh that’s how it is? When was the last time _you_ were on a date, Santiago?” 

Her jaw dropped in that way that just made him want to tease her more. She was so _easy_. “I go on dates!” 

“The dentist doesn’t count as a date, Amy.” 

“Daaaamn,” Rosa laughed, raising her eyebrows and taking a sip of her beer.

Amy crossed her arms over her chest. He was really getting to her, which was even funnier considering she was the one who started the teasing in the first place. “Fine. Let’s bet on it.” 

“Oh, now we’re talkin’,” Gina looked up from her phone, interested in what was going on at the table. 

“If you’re betting me on who can go on more dates with dentists, you’re already ahead by two, so that’s not a fair fight.” He took a long swig of his beer, carefully subduing the smirk that wanted to make itself known across his lips. He knew the joke would stab further into her side if he managed to look nonchalant about it. 

She wrinkled her nose at him. “It was _one_ date with _one_ dentist, and I’m never telling you anything again.” 

“So?” He prompted further, leaning a little closer to her. “What’s your bet?” 

“I bet I can go home with somebody tonight before you can.” 

He scoffed. “That’s not even fair.”

“Why not?” 

“Yeah, Jake, why not?” Charles raised his eyebrows knowingly, crossing his arms to mirror Amy and using his too-high insinuating voice. 

Jake made a face at Charles, then turned back to Amy. _“Because_ men are animals and you could offer sex to any one of these guys and they’d take you home right this second.” He turned back to Charles. “And that’s the _only_ reason.” 

“Mhm,” Gina murmured.

“Wow, Jake. You think I’d just use my body like that? That’s what you think of me?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him, pausing to take a sip of her beer. The angle of her eyebrows proved that while her reply sounded joking, she was at least a little bothered by his words. You don’t spend almost all of your time with Amy Santiago without learning all of her mannerisms—especially the mannerisms related to her being annoyed by all of your intentional annoying—and he spent a majority of his time with her, what with her being his partner and all. He’d been teasing her, but he didn’t mean for that comment to come off that way. “Some of us actually use our personalities to attract dates.” 

“Oh, is that how you do it, Ames?” Gina smirked up at Amy briefly, then looked back down to her phone. “I was always under the impression that your mom set you up with those dentists.”

“It was _one_ dentist!” 

“Okay, first of all, you know it’s unfair to turn me on at the beginning of a bet, and your methods of distraction will _not_ work on me. And second—”

“Neither of you can explicitly offer sex right off the bat,” Rosa cut him off with an eye roll before he could correct himself. “You have to flirt your way into a conversation. Abide by lame social constructs. The guy has to ask first, because the second Amy asks, someone’s accepting, but the likelihood that a woman’s going to make the first move on Jake is low—”

“Ouch,” Jake made a face, then finished off his beer. 

Charles clapped his hand on Jake’s shoulder gently. “Not because of you, buddy.”

“I know, I was being a bitch,” he muttered, his eyes creeping back over to Amy. She was looking more smug now, and he couldn’t have that. He poked his tongue into his cheek. “Fine, you’re on.” 

He extended his hand forward, and Amy shook it firmly. 

Gina groaned. “C’mon! Make it more interesting. Every time you start a conversation with someone, but don’t get their number, you take a shot.”

“Hmm,” Jake made an amused, squeaky sort of noise. He raised an eyebrow at Amy. “I’m interested. You in?” 

“Of course I’m in.” She finished her beer, flashing Jake a smile as she set her empty bottle down. “Not that _I’m_ gonna be taking any shots.” Her smirk only disappeared so her tongue could flick across her bottom lip before she grinned at him, and then she was slipping out of her chair, on her way over to another table. 

“Shots fired!” Gina exclaimed. 

He stared after her for a moment, equal parts annoyed and interested. He quirked an eyebrow. “Is there a rule against sabotaging each other?” 

“And he pulls the proverbial pigtails,” Charles didn’t even bat an eye when Jake rolled his eyes at him. Rosa snickered.

“I’m not pulling her pigtails. I don’t like Amy.” It shockingly wasn’t the first time Charles had insinuated such a thing, and apparently no matter how many times Jake set the record straight, Boyle never quite got it. He reached for his beer, frowning when he realized it was already empty. 

“Sure, preventing her from going home with somebody else doesn’t seem at all like you might be interested.” Charles shrugged. “Just saying.” 

“Ugh.” Jake rolled his eyes. “I’ll show you. I’m gonna find a date and crush Amy _so hard.”_ He glanced around, finding a woman drinking off by herself, then took off straight for her. 

“He totally likes Amy,” Charles mused.

“Yup,” Rosa agreed.

“The boy’s smitten,” Gina finished. 

—

“Hey, how’re you—”

“I have a boyfriend.” 

Jake blinked slowly. “Right.” The woman didn’t look up at him. “Look, I uh, made a bet with my friends, so is it cool if I stand here and talk to you for like three minutes so I don’t look _quite_ so bad?” 

“You made a bet with your friends? About whether or not you could pick me up?”

“What? No. I mean, no, not you _specifically,_ but—” She finally directed her attention to his face. Her eyebrows were furrowed. He blew air from between his lips slowly. “You’re right, I’ll just, uh… go over there.” 

He stalked away, ignoring his friends whooping from the table as he made his way to the bar to order his first shot. He looked up, scanning the crowd for Amy. Hopefully she was doing just as badly as him with stranger number one. He couldn’t find her, but to his surprise, when he turned to look for her in a different direction, she was sidling up next to him. 

He grinned at her. “Amy ‘Not That I’m Gonna Be Taking Shots’ Santiago, as I live and breathe.” 

“You were at the bar before me, for what it’s worth.” 

“Yes, but I was much less openly confident about my projected success, so this is a win for me.” 

She rolled her eyes. “What happened?”

Jake shrugged one shoulder. “She had a boyfriend.” 

Amy hummed, then turned and scanned the bar. She gestured. “That girl?” He offered her a nod. “Yeah. That guy at the table with her—her boyfriend—was my guy number one.” 

A smile stretched across his face. “Wow, we really know how to pick them, huh?” 

“Guess so.” She smiled at him as they stepped up to the bar. “You get this round, I’ll get the next one?”

He gasped. “Giving in so easily? You miss the first guy and you’re already sure you’ll be having a second shot?” 

She shrugged. “Third time’s the charm, right?” 

He chuckled quietly, smiling up at the bartender when he turned to face him. “I’ll have two double shots of your finest whiskey, please.” 

Hank raised his eyebrows at Jake. “Peralta, our finest whiskey costs—”

“Okay, Hank,” Jake interrupted, choosing to ignore Amy’s laughter, “two double shots of your eight dollar-est whiskey.” 

“Coming right up.”

Amy nudged Jake with her elbow. “Double shots? I thought the agreement was a shot per rejection?” 

Jake’s eyebrows pulled together. “Shit, I didn’t even think about it. Normally when I order for us, it’s doubles.” 

She picked up a glass as Hank set them down on the counter. She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s fine, but I’m just getting single shots next round.” 

Jake scrunched his eyebrows up further after sliding Hank a few bills. “Then you get the next two rounds.” 

Amy scoffed. “I’m not gonna be needing two more rounds.” 

She knocked her shot back, finishing it in one go. The glass clinked as she set it back on the bar. She licked her lips, biting gently on her bottom lip, which is exactly the moment that he noticed he was paying way too much attention to her lips which, by the way, was _weird_ and out of the ordinary for him, no matter what Charles says. 

She grinned over at him. “Round two.”

Then she disappeared into the crowd, leaving him looking hopefully less bewildered than he actually felt. Charles was getting in his head. He didn’t like Amy. He slammed his shot, turning in the opposite direction to find somebody else to talk to. 

About ten minutes later, he and Amy met back at the bar. He was still stifling his laughter as he walked up next to her. “What happened this time?” 

Amy frowned. “Guy talked to me for a few minutes, and I thought things were going pretty well…” She trailed off, then rolled her eyes. “He said he’d normally ask me if I wanted to get out of here, but I ‘lowkey kind of look like a narc’—” She was going to continue, but he wouldn’t be able to hear her over his laughter, so she stopped. “Shut up.” 

“I’m sorry,” his laughter was dying down, but it still slipped out here and there. She laughed with him. “I mean, to be fair, you _are_ kind of a narc.” 

“Yeah, but so are you!” 

“But I’m way better at hiding it!” 

“We’re in the middle of a bet, I don’t think we need to start a new bet right now.” 

“Which is good for you, because you’d definitely lose that one. Jeez, you haven’t had five drinks yet, have you? The _overconfidence.”_

“Shut up,” she repeated. “I think my two beers plus my two shots probably clocks me in somewhere around three on the official drink scale.” 

“Uh-oh. Four drink Amy isn’t going to blow this for us by breaking the rules and asking someone to go home with her, is she?” 

She laughed. “Four drink Amy has _a little_ control over herself.” Her laughter faded. “What happened to yours?”

Jake laughed stalely. “Get this. The girl saw us talking when we had the first shots.” Amy raised an eyebrow. “She talked to me for a few minutes, then said that she _saw me with you_ , and she was going to be telling my girlfriend that I was a cheater.” 

Amy laughed almost as hard as Jake had laughed at the narc comment. “That’s ridiculous.” 

He swallowed. “I know. Crazy, right?” 

She ordered, they slammed their shots, and he watched her walk away. _Damn it._

He cycled through his third, fourth, and fifth shots (another _I have a boyfriend,_ a _you’re cute and all but I actually don’t like guys,_ and a woman who brought up marriage in the first two minutes that he’d spoken to her—and the promise of uncomfortable weeks to come if he pursued _that_ wasn’t worth winning a bet). Amy hadn’t been back up to the bar. When the pretty, blonde _you’re a Gemini?_ woman sent him up for shot number six, he scanned around for Amy. 

It was the drinks. He’d had three beers before his five shots. Things were getting a little fuzzy around the edges now. _That’s_ why he had a sinking feeling when he couldn’t locate her around the bar. The pit in his stomach had nothing to do with potentially losing the bet, but it also had nothing to do with Amy and whatever feelings Charles had planted in his head. It was just the alcohol. 

He was raising his sixth shot to his lips when he finally found her. She was leaning over the table, laughing at some guy she was talking to. Her hand was on his forearm. She was totally gonna seal the deal. He knocked his shot back, then, for good measure, he ordered one more. He couldn’t really blame that jealous pang in his chest at seeing her laughing with another guy on the alcohol. Stupid feelings, stupid bet, stupid Jake. 

He glanced back over at their table, but their friends had gone home sometime in the past two hours. He sucked in a sharp breath. Sounds about right. He prepared himself for the burning sensation of his seventh shot. He should actually probably head home, too. 

Or maybe he should stick around and order another shot. 

—

He clamped his eyes back shut as soon as they opened, suppressing the groan stuck in his throat. It felt exactly like Scully tossed his thumbtack mug straight into his eyes. _How much did he drink last night?_

A tiny bout of nausea tugged into his awareness, and he successfully shoved it down. He didn’t have time to be sick, he was busy listening to the whooshing sound in his head, trying his hardest to subside the pounding there by shoving his head under his pillow and blocking out every bit of light he could manage. 

His one question—how much he’d drank the night before—quickly turned into more questions. How did he get home last night? He clearly hadn’t driven. Where was his car? Did he go on the subway like this? Was this going to be another shirtless Chinese chicken salad, beef light of my loaf drunk text to—

_Amy._

He mustered up the energy to roll over at the thought of her, and he probably would have been shrugging away the nausea again except that another, more pressing feeling was hitting him and new questions had arisen. For example, _who is this person in my bed?_

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, afraid to open his eyes and have the night come back to him. His hand found bare skin when he rolled over. He inched his hand up higher, hoping to learn a clue about the person next to him. What the fuck happened last night? He didn’t even remember coming home with a girl. Had he won Amy’s bet? 

He had half a mind to just snuggle in closer and drift back to sleep. That had to be better than fighting off this pounding in his skull. But he couldn’t do that, he didn’t even know who was next to him. His hand slipped up a little higher, the plane of his guest’s belly transitioning into the sharp curve of a ribcage. He felt his way up until his fingers were exploring softer flesh, his reflexes taking over as soon as he was because—look, he couldn’t even say with certainty that he wasn’t still drunk, but even if he wasn’t, he couldn’t think through this headache, and, I mean, _c’mon,_ what else was he supposed to do? It wasn’t like he made a conscious decision to do it, but his hand’s exploration became way more focused when he made it to her chest. He squeezed softly, trying to study the responding contented sigh for clues. When his thumb flicked over her nipple, she hummed, and Jake was sure that even that time in high school when he’d borrowed his mom’s car without permission and had almost gotten into an accident, he’d never slammed on the brakes quite this hard. 

Because you don’t spend all your time with Amy Santiago and not learn all of her mannerisms. When you spend a majority of your time with her, like he does, you learn little things about her. Like, for example, the satisfied little hum she makes when she finally tastes fresh coffee after being locked in the car for seven hours on an overnight stakeout. 

He completely ignored the plea for help from his brain as his eyes snapped open to confirm his suspicions. That hum belonged to Amy Santiago. He was hungover in bed with his hand on Amy Santiago’s very naked chest. 

He blinked slowly. What the fuck does he do now? 

How the fuck did he get here? What the fuck happened? How? He? And Amy? In his bed? Together? 

He tried his hardest not to tense up as he completely stopped moving. How did this happen? He closed his eyes again, trying to think back on the night before. He was a detective, right? He totally had this. 

They’d made a bet. Their friends were all in on it. Their friends were all gone, though. When Jake ordered his seventh shot, the only members of the squad still in the bar were Amy and him. What happened after that?

He had the vaguest memory of talking to her again. He pulled at the memory, trying to unravel it behind his eyelids. 

She giggled. _No luck?_ She raised her eyebrows at him in that knowing way that always got him riled up. It served its same purpose in that moment as it always did. _I’ll buy this shot myself, since you’ve clearly had to buy more shots than I have._

She took a deep breath, his hand rising with the movement of her chest. He blinked his eyes back open to look at her. She was practically glowing in the orangey morning light, but unlike the first time he opened his eyes, he didn’t want to look away. How could she look this pretty so early in the morning? To his memory, she hadn’t drank quite as much as him, but he guessed that she’d still be fighting a hangover. If she was, there were no signs of it. She just looked relaxed, her lips slightly upturned, and he suddenly had a not entirely unfamiliar urge to kiss her. 

He had kissed her, he assumed. Last night. Considering, ya’know, that they’re in bed together. Did she know she was in bed with him? She couldn’t have known. Sure, they flirted all the time, but that was just their dynamic. She didn’t like him like that. Unless… she did? He blinked over at her. No, she couldn’t. Even if Charles was right about his feelings and all the _proverbial pigtail pulling_ , that didn’t mean he was right about Amy having feelings for him, too.

But Charles _was_ right about Jake’s feelings. He knew it without a doubt as he laid next to her, his attention constantly tugged to the rhythm of her heartbeat beneath his hand. He thought back to the night before, to seeing her talking to that guy and feeling undeniable jealousy. He didn’t want her to go home with some guy, he wanted her to come home with him. 

And she did. 

But this wasn’t what he meant. He didn’t just want her to _come home with him_. He _liked her_. He didn’t want to sleep with her just to return to their usual work dynamic come Monday. He wanted to lean closer to her now, to wrap his arms around her, to trail soft kisses from her collarbone up to her jaw, to whisper a soft _goodmorning, Ames_ in her ear. 

But it’s not like he could do that. There’s no way she would want that. He’d do all those things and she’d immediately tense in his arms. Jake and Amy were _partners_. He could already anticipate the problems that sleeping with her would cause (at work—don’t even get him started on the problems it would cause in his mind), could outline all of Amy’s major points before he even heard her say them. 

_How did they get here?_

Was Amy that drunk? He was sure that he initiated this, couldn’t imagine Ms. Most Appropriate being the one to drag her colleague home for sex—like she said, four drink Amy had _some_ control over herself. Jake, on the other hand… He had control over himself, but only until it came to Amy. This was something he’d wanted, whether he’d admitted it to himself or not, and sober Jake never would’ve acted on it—especially not like this. God, and what if she was so drunk that she didn’t even remember? What if this ruined their friendship? What if he’d finally fucked everything up with one of his stupid bets? 

He bet Amy that he could take a girl home with him and, well, he technically did. He did the right thing with the wrong girl. 

But no, that wasn’t right either. Amy wasn’t the wrong girl. 

Amy Santiago, whom he’d met some five years ago. She’d pushed every one of his boundaries since the day he met her, drove him absolutely insane, found a way to get on his every last nerve. She teased him and out-solved him and gave him dirty looks every time he’d make a joke, but god, she made it so easy. 

Amy, who made him a better person. Through a hundred _ya’know, Peralta_ s that led up to advice that was actually really helpful, through being there time and time again when he couldn’t keep his head on straight, through trusting him and backing him up on his choices because they were partners. They’d always have each other’s backs. 

Eventually having each other’s backs meant more than just backing each other’s hunches and following long-dead leads on cases that felt just a little too cold. At some point _I’m here for you_ meant _I’m sorry your dad didn’t show, I’ll be at your apartment at seven with extra egg rolls._ At some point, joking secret Santa gifts turned to actual, well thought out gift exchanges, a private smile shared between them at their desks once the rest of the squad had already gone home. They’d shifted from rolling their eyes at each other at every turn to having weird, kind of romantic moments at their friends’ parents’ wedding. 

Amy, for whom his love fell somewhere between the way he felt for Gina throughout his life and the way he’d felt for Jenny Gildenhorn in middle school. Yet at the same time, it was something entirely different, something more complicated and intense. _She’s like a sister_ , he recalled saying to Boyle once. It was the quickest way to shut down speculation over feelings he wasn’t ready to face. 

Amy, the only person he’d ever exchanged tense, meaningful eye contact with while they were on the other side of a gun. The silent communication they shared rivaled even the most seasoned partners. He was pretty sure she could explain the entire plot of a book he’d never even heard of with nothing more than her eyes. That communication had gotten them out of countless bad situations—both at work and otherwise. It wasn’t unheard of for one of them to receive a panicked call from the bathroom at some restaurant, an _I’ll owe you one, I swear, please get me out of this date._

Amy, whose gentle hands worked over his wound when he’d been stabbed in the side on that subway robber case. Her hands shook, but her voice never did, and he later wondered if it was the blood loss that had him hearing _you can’t leave me, Peralta,_ her hand sliding to his jaw to guide his spotty eyesight back to her face. Her attention made him warm all over, even as he faded out of awareness on the cold concrete in that subway station. When he woke up in the hospital some hours later, the first thing he noticed was the gentle pressure of someone else’s hand on his. She let go of his hand when he blinked awake, and instead of asking her to hold his hand again like he wanted to, he croaked out, _how cool do you think this scar’s gonna be?_

She shook her head at him, but her smile was as beautiful as ever. _It’s a pretty cool scar, Jake. Thirteen stitches._

 _Sick,_ he’d whispered. _Mysterious scars raise your sex appeal by like, at least three points._

A few years later, he was holding her in some dirty alley somewhere. She hissed through the pain, insisting that she was okay as he shrugged off his t-shirt to wrap around her calf. She slipped while climbing a fence during a chase, sliced a three-inch vertical cut above her inner ankle, and while Jake had seen that much blood before, he’d never seen that much of Amy’s blood. 

_I’m okay,_ she repeated, _it just hurts._ He cradled her closer with his free arm, doing his best to keep her off of the gravel while simultaneously trying not to cause her more pain. She sucked in a sharp breath as he applied more pressure to her cut. _You should go chase him._

Jake shook his head. _Rosa’s got him. I’ve got you._

_Medical will be here any minute Jake—_

_Ames._ He pushed her hair out of her face where it was sticking to the sweat on her forehead. _I’m not leaving you._

She gripped onto his jacket, leaning into him and just letting herself breathe. Suddenly she laughed, and he braced himself to look down and see significantly more blood loss. He let out a relieved sigh when that wasn’t the case. She grinned up at him. _On the bright side, mysterious scars raise your sex appeal by at least three points._

He laughed. _If you’re trying to raise your sex appeal above mine, I’m like fifteen scars ahead of you, Ames._ He adjusted his grip to better support her neck, unsure of what he was even trying to convey to her with his serious gaze. _I’m joking. You don’t have to get hurt on the job to be hotter than me, Amy._ She laughed softly, and her eyes fluttered shut. Maybe she hadn’t lost too much blood, but she was definitely exhausted. Her eyes were wide when she looked back up at him, and they were both leaning in to close the distance between their lips when Rosa’s voice cut into the silence. 

They both jumped at the sound of the staticky walkie. _We got him, on our way back to you. How’s she doing?_

Jake fumbled with the walkie, his eyes still on Amy’s and his voice weak as he replied. _Good. She’s good._

Later at the hospital, she thanked him. He shifted his weight, trying his best to avoid her eyes. _I’d do it for any one of us._

They smiled at each other when he finally met her gaze, and they never talked about it again. 

Amy was the right girl. He’d done the wrong thing with the _right_ girl, which was even worse. He’d been secretly longing for more with her, ignoring his desires because he was too afraid to risk it all, too afraid of what rejection from her would feel like, too afraid to confirm his suspicion that he’d never be enough for the amazing woman he’d fallen for. And now he’d drunkenly slept with her, so… 

How did he walk himself into this monumental misstep? He closed his eyes again. He could see Amy guiding him back to their table at the bar. She slid into the booth next to him, probably an effort to keep him in the seat. It was a good move. With all the alcohol and the jealousy swimming around his head, he probably felt like wandering away from her. _Anywhere away from her_. She’d been teasing him and it’s not like he was exactly in the best position to tease her back. It turned out that seven—or eight? He couldn’t remember—shot Jake wasn’t exactly well-versed in anything that required him to think. 

That’s where the memories at the bar stopped. The next memories he had skipped straight to his bedroom. Amy’s fingers tugging at his hair, pulling his head back for better access to his neck. Amy tugging his jeans down and pushing him back on his bed before slipping her own jeans off of her hips and joining him. Amy sighing against his lips as he gently pushed her thighs apart, pressing her into the mattress and harmonizing with her as they moved together. Amy saying his name. 

His fingers twitched against her skin. This time, her hum was laced with a bit of a laugh. “Jake, stop, that tickles.” 

He froze. She said his name. She knew it was him. She shifted closer to him, pressing her back against his chest. His arm wound around her where she moved closer, but even as he relaxed into her, he couldn’t shove away the shock and the confusion eating away at him. 

“Relax, Jake.” 

She reached behind her, her fingers making lazy work of carding through his hair. He relaxed further into her, leaning his chin on her shoulder. She’d always been pretty good at pulling him out of his thoughts, and it turned out that it was even easier when her voice was soft and her warm skin was even softer on his. After a moment, he experimentally pressed his lips against the space below her jaw. He could hear the smile in her voice as she hummed, her hips hypnotically grinding closer to him. 

“Mmmm, Ames,” his voice was raspy, thick with sleep, his hangover, and newfound desire. “How did…” She stopped moving, his hand rubbing softly at her hip. “What happened last night?” 

She was quiet for a moment. “You don’t remember?” 

He shook his head against her. “No, no, I remember _some of it._ I remember you—I remember _us_. I don’t remember uh, leaving the bar, though.” 

“God, you drank a lot.” Her fingers continued playing through his hair as she recounted the events at the end of their night. 

—

He leaned closer to her in the booth, propping his head up with his elbow on the table. _Can I tell you a secret, Ames?_ She raised her eyebrows, a prompt to continue. _I just don’t really even wanna go home with some girl I met at the bar._

She grinned at him, her bottom lip pulling between her teeth for a second. _Good thing. It doesn’t seem to be going too well for you._

He pressed his finger against her lips, his eyes staying focused on her mouth as her lips parted in surprise. _Shhhh, secret’s not over Amy._ He seemed to catch himself, and pulled his hand back into his lap. His eyebrows drew together. _I don’t wanna go home with some girl I met at the bar. I wanna go home with some girl I met at the niiiiiiiinety-ninth,_ he paused to swallow and catch his breath after really dragging out ‘ninety-ninth’, _precinct in **Brooklyn** ,_ he really overemphasized the word, and she giggled, _New York like… Ames, what year is it?_ He tilted his head in thought. _I’m joking, I know what year it is, it’s just hard to do math right now. How long have we known each other?_

She suppressed a smile. _Five years._

 _Mhm, five years,_ he agreed happily. _Some girl I met at work five years ago. I wanna go home with her._

Finally, she let her smile creep across her face. _Can I tell you a secret?_ He nodded at her, his eyes wide and inquisitive on hers. _That last guy actually asked me to go home with him. But I didn’t wanna go home with some guy I met at the—_

The pressure of his lips on hers surprised her. He was so close, and he simply ducked his head toward her and pressed his lips to hers, cutting her off in the middle of her sentence. Her response was almost reflexive. One of her hands landed firmly on his jaw, the other coming to rest on the back of his neck. Half a second later, when her brain caught up with her body, she briefly lifted her hands off of him. _She was kissing Jake. Jake!_ The arm resting around her waist pulled her closer, and she relaxed into him again. 

She’d thought about kissing him more times than she’d ever say, but this kiss was nothing like what she’d expected kissing Jake Peralta would be like. There was a vulnerability to him that she hadn’t anticipated. She’d seen that vulnerable side of him, of course, but never in relation to any of his dating stories. Maybe, she thought, he was just as nervous as her. It was all give, no take. He tasted like whiskey and he smelled like him, the way he always did, the scent that she’d craved getting just a little closer to on so many occasions. His fingertips barely brushed against her face as he held her, and _how_ could a kiss so gentle leave her so breathless?

 _Mm’sorry,_ he apologized softly, still so close to her. His eyes remained on her lips instead of shifting back up to her eyes. _I don’t know what I was thinking._

She pressed her finger to his lips, effectively shutting him up. _Stop talking and kiss me, Jake._

—

“And I called an uber, and here we are.” 

“Here we are,” Jake echoed. 

She shifted closer to him again. He breathed a quiet laugh, pressing a kiss onto the back of her shoulder. 

“How are you feeling?” 

“Mmmm,” he hummed as she turned to face him. “Part of me thinks I might actually be dead.”

“Well here,” her lips tugged into a smile as she leaned closer, pressing her lips to his. She licked her lips as she pulled away. “You kissed me back, so I think you’re okay.”

“I’m not,” he whined. “Hold on, let me show you.” He pulled her back to him, both of them laughing as he pulled her into a deeper kiss. Who would’ve thought a bet would’ve finally gotten them here? He’d just shifted to pull her on top of him when both of their phones buzzed. Jake groaned softly as she stretched to reach for hers on the bedside table. “Noooo.”

She laughed, dodging him as he kissed her neck. “What if it’s work?” 

He ignored her, focusing his attention back on trailing slow kisses across her neck. She laughed. He looked up at her, smiling at the sound. “What is it?” 

“It’s Gina. She wants to know who won the bet.”

**Author's Note:**

> anyways stream black & white by the maine bc it's still my favorite album of theirs. the other songs my one shots will be based on are: fuel to the fire, inside of you, saving grace, and color. ¨̮ 
> 
> hope you liked it!


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